Not As We
by Iniysa
Summary: Winona Kirk arrives home after her five year mission only to find out that her world has changed. Jim's no longer causing trouble, has joined Starfleet and saved the Earth. And Sam, well he's happy.


Not As We

By Lauren Freeman

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, or anything that has to do with Star Trek. I am making no money from this story.

A/N: I have a few stories written and waiting for me to edit them. Since I can't find a Beta reader, I am going to have to do the best I can. (I can beta other peoples work, but never my own it seems.) Anyway, all errors: There vs Their vs They're are mine.

Not As We

It had been five years since the last time Winona Kirk had set foot on Earth. Four years since she had spoken to either of her sons. Her eldest, Sam; wanted very little to do with his biological family. She had not heard from him since he had run away years ago, Then out of the blue, she had received a call from him while on a transport to her next mission on a tiny planet. That had been four years before, she had been unfortunately out of reach since.

As for Jimmy, well that boy had always looked far to much like his daddy for her to ever truly feel comfortable looking at him. It hurt to look into his eyes and as he had grown she found herself thinking Jimmy was George at brief glances so she decided to go on as many away missions as possible. She wasn't proud of herself by any means. She knew that her sons and their uncle Frank were on rather... horrid terms though she never investigated just how bad things were, she didn't want to know. Just guessing made her cringe, it had to be bad enough that Sammy had cut ties and run.

Now she was finally on her way home after her long five year mission. In fact she would be back on Earth in less then ten minutes; she could not help but wonder what her boys were doing? Was Jimmy in jail? She knew he was a trouble maker, and really with everything that boy got into, it was a wonder how he had managed to stay out of jail for as long as he had. And Sammy, had he met anyone? Did he graduate college? He had only a year left when she left. She sighed and watched the Earth grow larger in the round thick the window beside her. First she had to be debriefed, then she could begin arranging a flight to Iowa where she would find out exactly what had happened in the four years she had been out of contact from everyone. She prayed Jimmy wasn't in jail somewhere, sometimes she would dream that he had gone to college and finally made something of himself, but she had very little hope of that. Not once had she ever returned or called home and found out that Jim had done anything good while she was away. Of course her main source of information had always been Frank so...

The shuttle finally and she took her first steps on Earth with a satisfying sigh. Despite the fact that she was always itching to leave the reminders of her dead husband, she still felt at home here. And it was always good to come home. An ensign stepped up to greet her, he was about five seven, very short black hair and wearing the Academy Reds.

"Lieutenant Kirk, Mame, the level two-A conference room is ready for your immediate debriefing." The Ensign stated before moving towards the tall building that stood aways from the Academy itself. She had only ever entered this building twice in her long career with Starfleet, once after the Kelvin, and the next was when she was unexpectedly cut from a mission because of a family emergency. She had come back and found out that Frank had sent Jimmy to the Tarsus IV colony, then she had found out what had happened their. She shuddered as she remembered that horrible year, that was the year Jimmy went from normal early teen rebellion to breaking and entering, hacking and other violations that got him tiny stints in Juvenile detention and long bouts of community service. Needless to say she did not like this building.

Normally her debriefs were set up in the main Academy offices, they only brought you here, where all the top ranking officer's offices were located; when something bad had happened, at least that's how it was for her. What had happened? A cold fear ran through her as she stepped into the front doors and followed the Ensign that never gave his name, to a lift. The second floor was quiet, to quiet; it made the hair on her arms stick up. She was led just down the hall and into a small conference room made up of a round table instead of the normal long oval ones and four office chairs. This was going to be a very small debriefing then, which meant that it wasn't going to be much of a debriefing at all, something had happened and this was where she was going to find out.

Winona sat down in the chair to the left and waited, face pale; for the officials to tell her the bad news. Why had she taken the one mission where she would be out of contact with the rest of the universe again? How long ago had this, whatever it was; happen? She had the sudden urge to run, but the door opened again and three men stepped into the small room. The only person she recognized was Pike, who was wearing an Admirals uniform with two bars put together and circled by another bar on his uniform... a Rear Admiral then, when had that happened? Last she had seen him he was planning on captioning the (then still in small pieces in a ship yard in Iowa) Enterprise. The ship should have been finished by now and on it's maiden voyage, no doubt a five year mission. So why was the now Admiral limping in to her debriefing? The rock in the pit of her stomach rolled, this had something to do with it. Whatever horrible it, it was.

Pike sat to her right while a Admiral with heavy gray hair and wrinkles sat in front of her and a younger man perhaps her Sam's age sat beside her. The young one was in a blue uniform denoting a science or medical position and was wearing three separate bars indicating that he is a commander. There was no running now, not that she actually would, she was a Kirk after all, and a Starfleet officer. But that flight response was a hard one to hold down. Besides, she needed to find out what happened and as it would seem this was the fastest most accurate way.

"Lieutenant Kirk, sorry for grabbing you straight off the shuttle, I know you would probably like to get cleaned up and rest for a while, but what we need to talk to you about is important and we didn't want you to run into reporters or find out about it in the news. I'm told you know Admiral Pike?" The gray haired Admiral asked.

"Yes." Winona stated, the stone in her stomach had grown twice as heavy. I am Admiral Komack and this is Commander Cohoron. She nodded to them both all the while glancing nervously at Pike who looked calmly back at her.

"What happened?" Winona asked once the formal introductions had been completed. Admiral Komack nodded, knowing she needed answers.

"First we need to have a quick debriefing. I have gone over all of your reports and would like you to tell me in person your mission, key events and your overall view of how it turned out." Admiral Komack stated. It took Winona a minute to switch her brain over from panic to mission. Thirty minutes later she was finished with her verbal report. It had seemed to take forever to get to the end, but finally she did, before answering a few more questions the Admiral threw her way.

"Alright, from here I am going to let Admiral Pike take over as he was there when the situation happened. Admiral?" Komack nodded at Pike who tensed up before nodding back. All attention was on him now.

"In February of this year, the Romulan ship Narada, which is the same ship that attacked the U.S.S Kelvin; destroyed Vulcan..."

"What?! Oh my God!" Winona stood up, eyes wide. All those people, an entire planet! She felt sick, not only had an entire planet been destroyed, but she had been thinking about herself, her personal family limited as they were.

"In the process we lost seven of our ships as well as three forth of this years graduating class."

"Oh..." Her eyes were wide as she fell back to her seat in shock. But why would the press want to interview her about this? The thought belatedly entered her head before she felt even more sick with herself for once again thinking of herself.

"Jim, was aboard..."

"Wait! WAIT!" She felt the air leave her lungs, Jim was aboard what? Why was he aboard anything?! "Why would Jim be out in space?" She finally asked.

"Jim joined Starfleet three years ago." Pike answered calmly, if not a little shocked that she did not know this fact. But then he didn't know the specifics of the mission she had been on.

"No, he hates Starfleet. He has a criminal record... wait he was a third year, he should not be on any ship!"

"You son is very smart, he jumped ahead along with his best friend Doctor McCoy. He was in this years graduating class..." She choked, three forth of the class had be killed... she was led into this office building...

"Oh God..." She mumbled again.

"He was aboard the one vessel to survive, in fact he was the reason the ship survived. He recognized the events surrounding the event and warned the bridge of an incoming attack. He disabled the drill that created the means to destroying Vulcan giving a few Vulcans enough time to evacuate. The captain of the Narada: Nero threatened to destroy the Enterprise if I did not come aboard his vessel. While I was being interrogated your son managed to take control of the Enterprise and as Acting Captain with the help of his crew, managed to stop Nero from destroying Earth as well, though it was a very close call." Pike continued. Winona had to pay attention to her breathing, trying to keep herself from having a full on panic attack.

"Jim and his crew saved Earth by boarding the Narada and fighting the Romulan crew from within. Jim saved me while his first officer engaged the Narada with a small Vulcan vessel. The Enterprise arrived soon after and engaged as well. Jim, Commander Spock and I were beamed aboard the Enterprise just before the Narada was destroyed in much the same way it appeared before the Kelvin years ago. In the process the Enterprise lost all it's warp cores in order to save the ship. I was kept in medical and Acting Captain Kirk got the ship home, very, very slowly mind you, but a month later we made it to Starbase One where the ship began repairs and the crew shuttled home. Jim finished his classes in the Academy and was promoted to Captain at his graduation ceremony. He is currently five months in on the Enterprises first five year mission."

There was a long pause, before Winona could no longer hold it back. A sob escaped without permission. She knew there was much she was not being told, knew that her son must have been injured during this. Her son... Admiral Komack and Commander Cohoron stood up and left the room, Pike stood and sat in front of her.

"Jim did have multiple injuries, but it was nothing his CMO McCoy could not handle. By the time we got to Earth he was healthy again, his current mission is going great. Turns out Captain Kirk is really great at this despite the fact that he did not move up the ranks like everyone else. He has a great crew who all excel in their positions." Pike continues before sitting back and letting Winona fit everything she had learned in her head while dealing with the sudden emotional roller coaster.

Winona, meanwhile was a mess of confusion. Of all the things that could have happened, this was never, ever even a blip of a thought. One, her trouble maker son had grown up and joined what he had deemed his entire life as: the enemy. The organization that had killed his father and took his mother away from him for the majority of his life. That in itself would take a long time to sink in. But then he not only graduated the Academy in the command program a year early, but graduated with the rank of Caption, then named the Captain of Star Fleets flagship vessel.

But if that wasn't enough... the being that had killed her Georgie, the love of her life; reappears before destroying an entire planet and engaging her son, the son born while escaping the mad Romulan. That thought sent a flash of sweat across her skin. She had no doubt that her son's own life was almost ended by that encounter alone. She shuddered again as she tried to stop crying. She needed to see her son, to talk to him; to assure herself that her baby who looked so much like her husband was in fact alive and well.

"Can I talk to him?" She finally asked after an unknown amount of time sitting in silence only disturbed by her sniffling.

"I will see what I can arrange."

"What about Sam?" Winona suddenly need to know about the rest of her family as well. Pike nodded already prepared for this.

"George Samuel Kirk graduated with a doctorate in research biology. Doctor Kirk has since been working at the CDC in Georgia. He marred a woman by the name of Aurelan. They currently have two children with another one on the way. He has been offered many jobs on other planets, including a big one on Deneva, but at the last minute declared that he didn't want to move his family to whole other planet. He's very protective of his family. Determined that they remain together and happy." Pike told her quietly.

"That has to be my fault." Winona mumbled. "Always leaving them..." She sighed sadly. "I'll work on contacting him later, married with children!" She smiled. Then became sad again, she had missed it, hadn't even know it was happening. She missed Sam graduating, falling in love and getting married. She had missed the announcement of their first, second and third child as well as the first two's births. Maybe there were holovids and pictures? Then she realized she had missed Jimmy graduating from high school, becoming a man, and graduating himself from Starfleet. She had missed his big promotion to Captain. She needed to begin researching her son's lives but first she needed to talk to them.

"Here is the key card to you assigned quarters until you leave on your next mission. I will put in a request for a personal video call to the Enterprise and give you the information when I get it. Meanwhile, I have put the contact information for Sam on your PADD which is in your quarters." Pike stood up and shook her hand. Be aware that your arrival was public knowledge and that even though it's been six months, there might be reporters who want your reaction on what has happened while you were gone." She nodded.

She had a lot to think about, a lot to catch up on. But there was just one more question she wanted to know before she left.

"Chris? Do you know how exactly my youngest decided to join Starfleet?" Pike blushed before sitting back down.

"Well, you see; it started with a bar fight in Riverside, Iowa..."


End file.
